Boston Archdiocese agrees to anti-abuse reforms

BOSTON -- The Boston Archdiocese agreed to a series of reforms aimed at protecting children from abuse, including the hiring of a policy enforcement czar to oversee the changes.

Plans to hire the czar, along with a shake-up of an internal review board that regularly gave pedophile priests free passes, were outlined Tuesday by two top church officials in a private meeting with Cardinal Bernard Law's Commission for the Protection of Children.

According to commission chairwoman Maureen Bateman, the archdiocese embraced other panel recommendations including creating an advisory board of mostly lay people to oversee a victim advocate office, and starting training on a child protection curriculum planned for Catholic schools.

Bateman said a full-time director of a new implementation and oversight committee would be hired by the end of August to make sure reforms are enacted quickly and enforced.